


excerpts from the dark tales

by apotheosizing_mini (apotheosizing)



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game), Dark Souls (Video Games), Demon's Souls
Genre: Bittersweet, Ficlet Collection, Gen, Introspection, Soulstober, Speculation, yknow the typical dark souls emotional landscape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:35:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 4,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26740729
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apotheosizing/pseuds/apotheosizing_mini
Summary: The flow of time itself is convoluted; with heroes centuries old phasing in and out. The very fabric wavers, and relations shift and obscure.A collection of short pieces written for Soulstober.
Comments: 44
Kudos: 20





	1. Dark - Liliane

Liliane’s footsteps echoed through the tower, snaking down to its foundations and twisting up to its sharpened spire. With care, she lowered the douter over the timid flame, snuffing it out. Smoke plumed beneath the brass, escaping like a death rattle when she pulled it away. She paused as the wax congealed on the golden lip of the candleholder and considered the passage of time.

It had been many moons since Yuria had departed on the promises of pilgrims and countless more since her eldest sister had burnt herself to unkindled ash and been carried away on a cold wind. She had marked the days, at first. Each morn she had lit the candles and passed close by the church’s windows, hoping to hear the flapping of a travelling cloak announcing a return.

As the waiting grew never-ending, the ache of solitude had faded. She prepared her sermons without wondering if Elfriede could substitute a more elegant turn of phrase. She encouraged those whose faith wavered without imagining the way Yuria’s had effortlessly held true. When young hollows murmured at the three statues that guarded the ascent of the steps and questioned aloud who the other two were meant to depict, she found her memory catching on the names. Thus she still allowed herself these brief reflections, to fix the tenors of their fading voices in her mind.

Once each light had been extinguished, she retired to her study. There, she ran her fingers of the words of the divine tome and the words they three had inscribed in it. Even with the touch of it lingering at daybreak, imagining those days grew more difficult with every attempt.


	2. Soul - Laurentius

His hands clasped around that of the chosen undead like a cocoon. Within the small, suffocating space of their palms, a flame burgeoned into existence with the hiss of life itself. They startled slightly at the sound and scent, perhaps remembering the sear of a hollow’s torch, or the sulphurous flame of the demons they had told him about in their explorations of the ruined kingdom below, until they realized that it would do them no harm.

Laurentius relinquished his grip, revealing the body of the flame to the chosen undead’s curious eye. He had once been in their shoes years hence, a young pyromancer marvelling at the very thing every darkened soul yearned for. It was said that the Daughters of Chaos who had first called forth flame had done so from their own souls.

It was a silly to entertain the idea that a child of Dark might manage to do the same but, as he had admitted to the undead in words cloaked in self-deprecating laughter, he had been something of a romantic in earlier days. In the glow of a pyromancy flame formed from the strength of the burning souls the chosen undead had laid upon the bonfire, it was easy to remember the comfort of that fanciful thought.

“Do take care of that flame, friend. It is - or was, now - part of me, you know.” They nodded, the gravity of the statement making it a solemn gesture. He watched with a teacher’s pride as they began to attempt to shape the fire, offering his advice until they were both certain the chosen undead had a suitable grasp on the basics.


	3. Armour - The Hunter, The Keeper of the Old Lords

Bone ash poured from the seams of the old armour, marking the wraith’s path through the catacombs. In the course of their pursuit it had left streaks in the hunter’s hair and on their attire, calling to mind the trails of unnatural comets.

The keeper made no attempt at concealing its presence; each collision of blackened bone plate echoed as loudly as the warning bells of the cathedral had done when this terrible night began. The hunt, then, was not a matter of finding their quarry but gaining insight into their nature.

Since the ranks of the workshop had fractured with the dissolution of their leaders, the hunter had become uncomfortably familiar with reading the deliberate movements of their fellows with eyes trained on the rampages of beasts. Yet these things below were never their kin. The tide had risen up in subterranean legions, an eerie prelude to ebb of the cosmos that had reached down to the city by means of the waning moon.

Though the prey was unfamiliar, the motions of the chase were a dangerous comfort. If they sought the truth buried deeper, they would have to embrace the uncertainty of the confrontation and hope quicksilver and steel would do their work. In the span of one breath of ossuary dust drawn in sharply, they divested their sword of its epitaph and surged forward.


	4. Demon - The Maiden in Black, The Slayer of Demons

Candle wax dripped down from where it pooled at the base of the wick, tipped lazily by the hand of the maiden garbed in black. It splashed down on their eyelids, rolling down them like tears; they blinked as it touched the skin but did not flinch at the scalding trail it left behind. Fleeting was the thought that it should have hurt, carried away by the knowledge that pain would soon be a dim memory. 

Their lips parted to voice the confusion, to question uselessly, too late. The maiden’s smile was unreadable through the veil of fog. They thought there might be pity there, or understanding. 

The stones that pressed into their knees shifted with the ripples of a great sigh, swelling up from beneath with the force of a shiver subdued by a blanket. They strained to see whether the breath had come from the maiden or themself even as the brume grew deeper. Merely keeping their eyes open felt impossible with the wax weighing them down, just as closing them was thwarted by the steady drop in time with the candle's burn It was yet another limbo from which they would never escape. Just as the maiden raised her gaze from her candelabra to speak‒ 

‒they awoke in the Nexus, as they always did, uncertainty clinging to their soul. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I'm tagging this with three fandoms but I couldn't help adding some baseless creepy Demon's Souls content


	5. Ghost - Queen Yharnam, The Hunter

There was a woman on the stairs.

It was the contrast of red on white that had caught their eye, the blood marring the pristine dress not yet faded to brown suggesting an open wound beneath the fabric and lace. Even so, no expression of pain creased her deathly powdered face and her eyes did not move from their fixation above at the sound of the hunter’s approach.

With the pale moon hanging like a threat in the sky, they concluded at first that it was the object of her interest but in truth her gaze fell short. They hesitated only a moment before coming to a height with her on the landing, following her look along the chipped stone of the tower.

A wail rung out from the cosmos, louder here than it had been when the hunter first encountered the apparition at the breaking of the ritual secret. The hunter could have sworn that it drew the slightest movement from the woman, a tremor of instinct thwarted. More like than not it was a trick of the fragmented moonlight.

They considered, for a moment, staying by her side a moment longer. The reasoning behind the yearning eluded them but the impulse itself stopped them in their tracks. When the spell shattered, they strode past her to the elevator, not daring to turn around until the shutter lumbered into place. By the time they cast a glance back, she was gone.


	6. Fire - The Painter

To capture fire on canvas felt an impossible task. She had pulled two half-finished attempts down from her easel in as many hours and her current project approached a similar fate, stymied yet again. Orange pigment flaked from her brush like the snowflakes at her window as it sat disused on the worn wood.

In her mind’s eye the flame was unyielding and inviting, protective and powerful both, but when she looked upon its image in her work, it always felt wrong. Her uncle had departed to seek sufficient kindling for her to use as inspiration when the rot had spread to the home of the corvians, leaving her with none to whom she could voice her frustrations. Father Ariandel and Sister Friede were rarely seen in the tiny chapel and though she had crossed paths with Vilhelm on occasion, he was not the amiable type.

She had hoped that the urgency of her task and the knowledge that if she completed the painting her uncle could return would spur  _ something _ , sharpen her skill or her eye. But the detritus of her endeavour slowly filled the room, the sickly-sweet scent of decay taking root in some of the oldest ones.

The legs of the stool screeched across the stone as she took her place at the easel, her thoughts of rest foregone. There was naught to do but try again. With a steadying sigh, she raised brush to the canvas and began to paint, to no avail.


	7. Swamp - Stone Trader Chloanne

Rays of moonlight had begun to shine through the pockmarked construction of the grand windmill by the time Chloanne circled back to her campsite. It had grown more difficult to discern the turn of the world from day into night, the pitiable sun dimming with each passing day.

It had been her mother, she thought, (or her father? she could only remember the force of the bellows when she called the memory to the fore) who had told her tales of the days when the sun burned so hot that people could not work, instead waiting for it to sink on the horizon to accomplish the necessities.

She leaned her greatsword against the mouth of the nearby tunnel, taking care to keep its hilt from the edge of the sickly mist that emanated from it, and began to sift through her findings for usable chunks. Each stony scale of titanite had its own flaws and shape, affecting its usefulness for shoring up a worn blade. Some claimed even the colour indicated certain properties, though she doubted that.

The strange hollow who had passed through the area a few days prior (weeks now, she thought, but that couldn’t be right) had indicated they would return and she meant to lighten her load, if she could. They always seemed to be dashing from place to place and it showed in their dented armour and haggard look. She wished she could remember the name of the blacksmith she’d intended to direct them to but the name always died on the tip of her tongue.

It troubled her, these moments of forgetfulness, but she did her best to put it from her mind; she was no undead and the curse would not ensnare the living. It was no serious matter - she would simply try again when next they met, perhaps something the undead mentioned told her of their travels would jog her memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've always wondered why Chloanne seemed so forgetful and... I still wonder, to be honest. I personally don't think she's undead but who knows!


	8. Snow - Alsanna, Silent Oracle

Icicles had grown like scales at the seams of the cathedral, sealing it shut. She had pressed a tentative hand against the old wood at the observation, her breaths coiling into fresh ice, her self-inflicted imprisonment in miniature. Alsanna could still call to mind the appearance of the last weary soul to wrench open the door, one of the knights who had been commanded with one of the king’s final words to hold the outer wall of the kingdom.

In the aftermath of that day, with the pooling Chaos still burning, every gate, every home, every window had been shut to prevent further contamination. She had ushered in the howling blizzard not long after, burning differently - cold - but no less ardently to cover the land in snow.

Fog had long obscured the glass of the dome that enclosed her, marking the edge of the remaining world, the small mercy he had paid for with his life. As her thoughts turned to the man in ivory, the old confusion returned. Years had passed since last she’d heard his voice yet the cadence of its remembered form still surprised her. She had never confessed her nature to him, for all she knew he suspected it, and still he had allowed her a place in the court. He had gone so far as to convey to her his dying wish, knowing what she had come to do.

She shook her head lightly and drew away from the entrance, the echo of her footsteps as she retook her place at the crown of the cathedral a death march. Though she could not understand his fool’s hope, she could shield it from the storm a little longer.


	9. Sword - Anri of Astora, Yuria of Londor

They awoke in the dark, awareness spreading outward from the dull pain in their chest until they felt the stiff marble beneath them and took note of the woman garbed in rich purples and blacks who stood by the coffin. They made to move, though they could not say whether they intended to shift away or speak as the pain sharpened, consuming their thoughts.

The woman spoke words they couldn’t comprehend through the ache, her tone amused yet not cruelly so as they had been expecting. Their memories were fogged by the curse but it was plain that they had fallen by her hand; what had motivated her not to simply kill them remained a mystery.

She wrenched something upward, alleviating their pain at once. With sudden lucidity, they realized that it was a sword. Its design, almost like an ornate key, offered no insight into the identity of her assailant. “Anri of Astora,” she said, startling them away from their questioning. Context returned to them, the rogue who had fell upon them as they made ready to leave the Church of Yorshka to rejoin the ashen one at the steps of the Pontiff’s grand cathedral.

Their surroundings did not match with their recollection of events but it was plain that any true assassin would not remain at their victim’s side. The woman allowed them a few moments to right themself and cast about the tomb, spying nothing of interest. Then, she said, “Follow me, lest thee be late to join thy spouse in their crowning moment.”

In one fluid movement, she turned the blade’s hilt to Anri’s hand. They took it, finding to their astonishment that its weight felt right in their grasp. Having no other option, they did as they were bid, led by their sure-footed guide along an unknown path.


	10. Dragon - Princess Dusk, Kalameet

Wing beats rustled the trees above her, so distant that one could mistake it for a natural wind. Princess Dusk, however, knew better. She looked up from the motes of light she had been concentrating on just in time to mark the passing of a long tail overhead, shattering her focus and leaving her only the waning light of the midday sun to illuminate the underbrush as she ran after it.

Her tutor had told her tales of the war with dragons, of Seath's heroic betrayal of his kin - Dusk had always thought that last a contradiction in terms, though he insisted she would understand the nuances of the matter when she had greater experience of the world. She knew that dragons were no friend to the heirs of fire and dark and had been warned away from the low basin that surrounded Oolacile on more than one occasion, not that it had dissuaded her. If she was going to draw the ire of her parents by venturing unaccompanied into the woods anyway, she may as well do something to truly deserve it.

Dusk came upon the dragon as it feasted, the sound proceeding the sight equally gruesome. Black scales like shards of obsidian flecked with red stood at odds with the browns and greens of the forest. She caught her breath before it betrayed her presence, the awareness that with one movement those blood-stained teeth could turn upon her in kind sudden and undeniable.

There was one stomach-twisting moment in which she thought she might have been caught. A snapping twig beneath her feet as she shifted among the branches to keep the dragon in sight brought her to a standstill, eyes wide as she watched for any sign that it had heard her - there were none.

As soon as the air quavered with the force of the dragon’s flight, she ran back to the safety of the city’s walls. Dusk never managed to find the dragon again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been having internet troubles this month so I'm going to be uploading these erratically from here on out until they get fixed. Soulstober might end up becoming partially a Soulstember, but hey! I want to try getting through all these prompts, even if it takes a while


	11. Knight - Lucatiel

Aslatiel had been the perfect knight. Gleaming upon his shield and breastplate had been the emblem rampant of Mirrah and, in practiced hands, his greatsword's blade had never fallen short of its mark.

Lucatiel suspected that the claws of the curse had smoothed away the moments where he had stumbled in following the footwork of the forms and the callous set of his jaw which she sometimes caught on her own face. She saw fragments of those imagined imperfections in the wiring of her dwindling supply of effigies, carrying reminders of the comfort of change and growth denied her.

The night after she had repaid the familiar stranger's assistance in kind, she had tried to remember his face. It had been many years since his departure, enough that she could pretend the uncertainty of her image of him was a product of nothing more than their time apart. Each gap in his features was filled with her own – for they were siblings and she had not yet been robbed of the memories of the many times they had been mistaken for each other in their youth.

The fragments of her laughter in the solace of the dark were sharp enough to wound as she held the constructed features in her mind. She wondered: when - not if, it could not be  _ if _ \- she found him, would she would be able to recognize him at all?


	12. Cooperate - Ostrava, Slayer of Demons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It might not be soulstober anymore but I'm determined to get through these prompts so here we go!

Four last sprigs of dark-moon grass were all that remained of the supplies they had picked up on their return to the Nexus. The din of battle - they thought of stalwart Biorr staring into the dragon’s jaws, unflinching, and knew they couldn’t look back - echoed behind them as they sprinted through the barbican, warped by the voluminous halls of the palace.

Ahead stood the lift, looming with a finality that made their heart waver in their throat. Lest they fell on the king’s blade their journey would end in the vaunted throne room beyond. So fixated were they that they didn’t notice, at first, the figure standing between them and their destination.

The intruder was like a black hole in the fabric of the world. Thick fog poured off the phantom’s form in waves, curling up black and obscuring. They had encountered these figments that reached across the veil before but they had never recognized the person beneath the apparition.

Together, they had fought through the remnants of the kingdom, lending each other their aid to overcome trials they could not face alone. Three of the bundles of restorative herbs in their possession had been gifted to them by him. It couldn’t be him; the distinctive shape of his sword and shield left no room for doubt.

Without thinking, they stopped short, wanting to speak, to shout, to turn away and refuse to do this. Instead, they adjusted their grip on the Kris blade, letting the hunger for souls that made the candle-maiden smile when they confided it in her drown their hesitation.

No one would stand in their way.


	13. Traveller - Rosabeth of Melfia

A statue stood, ensnared in the ruins at the foot of the small settlement of Majula. Many of these works of long-vanished hands dotted the countryside, testaments to glory that had never truly been, but this one was an oddity among them. It had been constructed alone, no other stone attendants flanking it, and its subject was not a regal figure in the least.

Her features were unremarkable, long hair worn freely and eyes shielded by her arms. She wore a dress that appeared to have been fashioned from several mismatched sources, perhaps by the woman herself. The passerby wondered who she was supposed to be.

If she was a figure of legend, it was too obscure for them to have heard the tale; if she was representative of some lofty idea, they couldn’t guess at it. It was a strange feeling, to look at someone unsure of whether they were real, all too familiar in the twilight of the age.

Almost arbitrarily, they decided that she must be someone, somewhere. They couldn’t put their finger on why the idea settled so firmly, they only knew that it felt like a moment of human connection on their long and solitary journey and they wanted to hold on to that illusory feeling no matter its truth.

Either way, it was clear they would not be able to pass through the woods. It would lengthen their journey to look for another route over the mountains that bordered Drangleic, certainly, but not enough that they wanted to try to clamber around the statue or break it just to use the lever it grasped. They were sure they would find their way, in the end.


	14. Magic - Big Hat Logan

The spine of the book wheezed at his touch, gasping up ash that must have drifted in on currents of air from the bonfire behind the bookshelf. He might have thought twice about removing it from its enshrinement were he yet capable of patience, as things stood he wrenched it open with all the delicacy of a starving man.

Since that clever undead had freed him from his prison, he had scarce blinked for fear of missing some marginalia scrawled over the existing manuscript. They had returned to his alcove from time to time, seeking his expertise as a sorcerer, and expressed concern at his state once. He had laughed, reminded them that as hollows neither of them had need for rest or nourishment. It seemed to placate them. They took copies of a few choice spells he had unearthed from the endless stores of the archives and went on their way.

He was reconsidering his words, now. Hunger had again taken root in him but nothing so simple as food or drink would quench it. It was staggering, to think how much knowledge was contained in a mere four walls. Accounts of events unknown to any other than the one that committed them to immortal page, lost arts humanity had wielded in the dark before flame, secrets condemned to languish in obscurity - all this and more he had seen in his researches and still he would not be dissuaded.

He could not say what he was looking for, except that it would quench the pyre he had built on the vellum of each discarded tome. He feared (hoped) that it would not be doused by all the works in the duke’s sprawling collection.

An unfamiliar (were they?) individual stood in the open passage, notable only for the fact that they were blocking the light of his best candle. They were speaking about something (unimportant) but he did not acknowledge a word of it. He reached up to pull another scroll from the shelves, still ravenous.


	15. Bird - Velka, Goddess of Sin

With a rattle and the shriek of metal against stone, the door swung open as the key clicked satisfyingly into place. The passageway beyond was ill-lit but they dared not light their torch so deep beneath the earth. They followed the whims of the short, maze-like tunnels until, at last, they reached a dead end.

Unlike the darkness they had travelled through, a soft glow - like a gentler hand of piercing sunlight, they thought - illumined fair stone features opposite their own. The curve of a smile caught their eye first, knowing and secretive. The statue’s eyes were covered by a drooping hood, failing to contain a mane of hair that spilled from its sides down to its waist. One hand clutched a tome to its chest while the other was outstretched in a manner they could not help but compare to the firekeeper’s own.

By force of habit, they knelt and extended a hand to rest in the statue’s cool grasp. No fingers curled around their own, though a strangle prickle of regard flashed at the exposed vertebrae of their neck. Unbidden, they spoke aloud of their wrongdoings, some vain hope that She who had given sin shape and name would take it from them now, reignite the sad ash they had become.

She did not. They remained kneeling until the damp sunk into the knees of their leggings, drawing them to their feet again. A feeling of foolishness came over them, uselessly, as there was no one but themself to serve as witness to the futile gesture.

They noticed, then, a pair of gleaming, beady eyes glistening in the half-light. A squat black bird was perched upon the shoulder of the statue’s reaching hand, staring at them. Neither bird nor undead moved for a long moment. It was the crow who broke the stalemate, taking wing and passing through the brickwork like air. The ashen warrior blinked and followed, wondering if perhaps their plea had fallen on a listening ear after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is the last prompt I'm going to be filling, since I have an eileen and iosefka fic I had the idea for in september that I'm hoping to finish before the end of the year, but even though I only made it halfway through I really enjoyed working on this challenge! I'll almost certainly be participating if soulstober runs again next year. I hope you all enjoyed reading these little excerpts!


End file.
